Saturday, November 26, 2011

I was reviewing one episode at a time this year, grimly slogging through each one, each week. But I fell a bit behind--nearly two weeks behind--so this week you're getting a special treat. Two episodes! Two reviews! One blog post! We're making the mold here, people, and then we're breakin' it! Ka-pow! Look out! You can read the rest of my reviews for this season here, if you want.

THE WALKING DEAD, SEASON TWO, EPISODE FIVE AND SIX
"Chupacabre" and "Secrets"﻿

I missed last week's review. You know why?﻿

Because I just don't give a shit. And I don't think I'm alone either. I read a few other sites and they have been doing reviews each week, every week, just like me. But a couple of episodes ago, they started to slow down. A couple of reviewers seemed to have even stopped completely and the few who are still at it are very obviously phoning it in, because they don't seem to have much to say.

And the reason why is obvious: The show is boring.

It's true.

Just like it's true that ever since Frank Darabont's dismissal as showrunner, The Walking Dead has gotten better with each successive episode. But that's faint praise, I'm afraid, considering that 90% of the episodes before his firing were practically unwatchable and definitely go-nowhere and just plain bad, but still... yes, it has been getting better. Unfortuately in this case, the sad reality is: "better" means "boring".

Boring.

Think about that.

This is a TV show with the basic premise that the world has ended, is now over-run with zombies, and it follows a disparate band of survivors who must stay ever-vigilant or risk joining the legions of undead. The characters live like hunted animals and every day it's kill or be killed. There's terror and death and blood and guts and bullets around every corner. One wrong step and friends, family, loved ones, even they themselves could get infected and turn into a flesh-devouring zombie. The characters could be devoured by the hordes of living dead. They could be killed by any number of desperate and oppurtunistic survivors they run into, or they could just die in general, a tragic result of living life in a world that has suddenly found itself without any kind of support system at all. The tension is high.

Ok, so Episode 5 is entitled Chupacabre. Why? Well, apparently the group's pet redneck Daryl claims to have seen one once... in Georgia... not Mexico... but whatever. What does this have to do with the episode?

pee-pee break

Pretty much nothing.

Oh, sure, you could say that highlighting this bit of personal history shows that Daryl is prone to hallucinations. You could say that. You could also say that highlighting this piece of personal history shows that Daryl is stupid. Both of which could, at the very least, be considered referential, as this episode focuses on Daryl. It's all about him and how he stupidly ventures out into the woods alone with a single crossbow bolt, trips, falls, and then impales himself on that very same single crossbow bolt and, due to blood loss, hallucinates that his brother Merle is taunting him in a very stereotypical rednecky way as he stumbles home delirious through a forest that is occasionally implied to be full of zombies.

"Tarnation, boy! Sassafrassin' pickup truck! Country music, yee-haw!"

Then! Oh, God! Then, just as he is about home, stupid Andrea--who's biggest character trait now seems to be that she never listens to anybody, flips out, fucks up, and then apologizes--spots him stumbling and thinks he's a walker. Everyone is like: "Don't shoot!" and they go running out there to take the zombie out quietly, you know, so they don't attract more...

See those trees waaaaay back there? That's where Andrea the Idiot is...

And Andrea, being a huge fucking dumbass, ignores everyone, waits for them to get all the way out there and discover that it's not actually a zombie, but a very injured Daryl, AND THEN... she decides to shoot. She shoots between four living people, just misses them, and actually hits Daryl. It's only a flesh wound, of course, because anything that might be out-of-left-field bad and maybe lead to some interesting consquences and story developments... that's bad..., so she doesn't kill him and nothing really comes of the moment. It's just stupid and pointless and so is she, or at least, she's written that way. Which is the real problem with the moment, in my eyes.

This is my least favorite thing ever: Girl-doesn't-know-how-to-shoot humor. Watch for it. Find some horrid, piece-of-trash, terribly written, stupid movie/TV show created by idiots for idiots and at some point, there's usually some sorority chick with a machine gun turning in a circle and screaming and shooting wild and wacky and out-of-control, bullets everywhere, maybe shooting the hero in the butt, maybe taking out the bad guys by accident. Ha! Funny murder... Cameron Diaz has done it.

A variation of this unbelievably stupid, sure sign of a terrible show, and the hallmark-of-a-hack-writer moment is this thing with Andrea. It half disguises itself as a "woman of power" moment, but if you look at from any kind of reality, it's actually a "girls are dumb" moment.

They had Peggy Carter do it in the Captain America movie and then put it in the trailer, over and over again, like it was the sassiest fucking thing in the history of the world! She shot at him! With a gun! What if the sheild hadn't worked? How is that funny and not completely psychotically irresponsible? George Romero even included a moment like this is Land of the Dead, where Asia Argento fires a Mini-gun at the hero and wackily takes out a zombie. A mini-gun! They can fire up to 6000 rounds a minute! 6000! Those guns turn people to mist and paste! "But as everyone knows, only a dumb girl would be soooo irresponsible." Screw you! And it's always played for humor. It's insane. It drives me insane. Ugh! I don't get it. And worst of all, no one even chastises Andrea. Everyone is like: Wah-wah-wahhhhhhh! Oh, that Andrea! Oopsey-doopsey-do!

I hate it so much, I wish they had included a scene where they yanked Andrea down off the RV and kicked the unholy crap out of her. That's how much I detest that stupid moment, I wanted them to beat the fuck out of a woman on TV. How awful is that? God, what a terrible show!

Ok, so, yeah... that was pretty much it. Sophia is STILL MISSING! Herschel is still hinting that the group should move on in the most passive aggressive ways he can. Everybody else made dinner and nothing really happened, except Hershel saw Maggie and Glen exchange a "do you want to go have sex? Mark yes or no." note. Which led to the BIG REVEAL:

Glenn decides the dark and foreshadowy barn is a good place for he and Maggie to do it, so he goes out there and discovers Herschel's secret... gasp!

Ok, so the Sixth Episode, entitled Secrets, is the big one, the second to last episode of the season, the one where all the cards are laid out on the table and all the secrets (see what they did there? So clever...) are finally revealed. It's also a big snoozefest.

Ok, so the episode opens on Glen and he's all "golly gee willickers, I can't keep a secret!" So, first he stumbles around practically wearing a sandwich board advertising the fact that he knows some secrets and then he eventually starts spilling the beans about Lori's pregnancy and the walkers in the barn to Dale, the second worst character on the show--Lori being too firmly entrenched at this point to give up that crown too easily. Dale immediately starts meddling and old-manning about, but nothing comes of it.

The two worst

Maggie gets mad at Glen for telling Dale about the barn, but nothing really comes of it. In fact they do it, I think. I might not have been totally paying attention. I do know they go into town for some stuff for Lori. This is the episode's big drama, folks: Will Lori keep the baby or not? DRAMA! You see, she sent Glenn into town to get some Morning After Pills, despite the fact that they would be completely ineffective at this point in her pregnancy, but hey... the writers can barely string together 42 minutes of coherant story, expecting them to look something up on Google is expecting too much. Anyway, Maggie is still mad at Glenn, because he thinks keeping zombies is really stupid idea just waiting to blow up, while Maggie is an ignorant moron, like her father, who thinks they're just sick or something else too stupid to bother listening to. So she goes stomping off in a huff after bitching at Glenn the milquetoast for a bit and gets attacked by a zombie.

"It hurts when I do this..." Wakka! Wakka! Wakka!

Unfortunately, Glenn saves her, but then Maggie is mad at Lori and chastises her for using "abortion pills" even though that's not what they are. DRAMA! But... nothing comes of it. Then, Rick finds the pills, as Lori is puking them up, and she ends up telling him everything, about the baby and Shane... everything. DRAMA! But don't worry, folks, nothing comes of that either.

There's a "wide stance" joke in here somewhere...

Hey, guess what? Here's a shocker. Sophie is still missing. So, in order to avoid repeating last week's storyline (too late), Shane teaches some of the others about guns, which pretty much seems to amount to him going: "See that? Shoot it. Come on! Shoot it! What's wrong with you? Shoot it!" And guess what? Stupid idiot Andrea shows that she sure can shoot, Yee-haw! She's got a cowboy hat on! So Shane takes Andrea with to go look for Sophia, but all they find are zombies. Newly dead-eye trickshooter Andrea kills a bunch and gets all gooshy in her pants afterwards, so she and Shane do it on the way home. Sexy drama! But Dale finds out and he gets mad at Shane and the two of them threaten each other, oh lordy, do they threaten each other. DRAMA AGAIN!

Luckily, nothing comes of it.

And that's it, the stage is set. The final episode is on in just a few scant days. Will it be as boring as the rest of this season? Will it be as dumb as last year's finale? Will it somehow combine the worst of both and strive for some heretofore unknown level of boring stupidity?

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

I wasn't paying attention, so I missed the initial posting, but for those of you out there who care even less about this thing than I do and yet are somehow still interested: The sixth and final episode of the most epic of all LARPing getaway weekends is finally here! Dragon Age: Redemption, comin' in hot! Will Uber nerd-cutie Felicia Day and her stalwart posse of AD&D misfits stick the landing or will they fall flat on their collective faces, and more importantly, will there be a discernible difference between those two options?

Ha! I kid because I love.

Let's watch...

Touching. Truly, truly touching. Has there ever been a more bittersweet victory. I ask you? I know I, for one, felt it in the cockles of my heart, maybe below the cockles, maybe in the sub-cockle area. Maybe in the liver. Maybe in the kidneys, maybe even in the colon. I don't know. The fact remains: I was touched. Moved. Single tear. Also, I love the ridiculous Bionic Woman jump there during the end. Awesome!

Alright, so that's done! Let's move on, shall we?

How about a few palette cleansers, hmmm?

Let's start with this little ditty here. This here is a G.I. Joe fan film by a fellow by the name of Mark Cheng. It stars a few old Joe favorites and then throws in a couple of surprise guest stars at the end. Sure, it's cheesey, melodramatic, over-wrought and more than a little silly, but hey... it is a G.I. Joe fan film, whattaya'want?

And continuing in that vein, next we have another fan film with a few surprise guest stars. It's called Batman: Dead End and it starts out as your basic Batman versus Joker run of the mill showdown, no big deal for the most part, except for the fact that it's the best representation of the cloth Bat suit to be put on film, but then it takes a turn and becomes kind of awesome. It's a classic fan film (and the type of idea that would kill at the box office) and even though it's from a few years ago, I still think it's one of the better put together and all around more professional looking of these type of things, even though some of the dialogue is... ahem... a bit heavy-handed. Anyway, enjoy.

So, yeah. Am I behind on my Walking Dead reviews? Yes. Yes, I am. But I will get to last week's episode hopefully tomorrow or maybe by Friday. Maybe. Soon, definitely. I think I deserve the slack, I mean, after all, I was early last week, remember? Right?

That's what I thought.

Anyway, keep a look out for next week, my dear Readers, because not only will I have another review up, this one for the more recent Walking Dead episode (the one from last Sunday), but I've got some updates to report on too, not to mention a new project direction to announce, so I'll have a few things to blog about. After that, it's just a quick slide into December and the last gasping breath of the year 2011 and I think all you long time readers out there know what that means, right?

Saturday, November 12, 2011

I'm reviewing one episode at a time this year, grimly slogging through each one, each week. You can read my reviews of the season so far here, if you want.

THE WALKING DEAD, SEASON TWO, EPISODE FOUR
"Cherokee Rose"﻿

Well, that was a whole lot of not much, wasn't it?

Now, the first thing you may notice is that it is not Sunday and yet, I'm putting up my review of last week's episode. Why a day early, you ask? No reason really. They did the crime and I got the time, I guess. Plus, this episode was really boring and went nowhere, so let's just get this done, shall we?

Wait... Who's Sophia again?

Ok, so﻿ this episode finds our stalwart band of snoozers doing much the same thing as they have been for the last few episodes... nothing. The others have finally given up on looking for Sophia while camping on the highway. They leave her a sign, but since she has been lost for the better part of the week in two or three square miles of forest RIGHT NEXT TO A FREEWAY, she's probably too dumb to read, so whatever. Meanwhile, Lori and Rick chat with Carl, when he occasionally wakes up and says something touching, and when he's asleep, Rick agonizes dramatically--jaw firmly set--while Lori makes cry-face. Christ, what terrible parents, right? They only have two kids with them and one is now missing and the other is shot.

Anyway, Shane is feeling generally guilty for murdering Otis, probably because he is forced to wear Otis's old clothes while his are washed. This fact, coupled with his newly shaved head and gigantic ears, makes him look like Lennie Small from Of Mice and Men.

"Rabbits, you say? Tell me more..."

Daryl, meanwhile is off lone-wolfing it for the missing girl... still. He finds an empty house and some evidence that someone may have been hiding out in there and also... wait for it... a Cherokee rose.

A Cherokee Rose? But that's the title of the episode! How clever!

Anyway, he then gives it to Sophia's mom as a kind of moral booster and tells her the story of the flower's relevance to the Trail of Tears, which to be honest, was a nice little moment, but two tears in a bucket, know what I'm saying? The really stupid part of this whole sub-plot--at least to me--is: His crossbow only has one bolt. That's not a very good weapon at this point, right? Sigh...

"I'm a'gonna kill me one zombie... and then die..."

Ok, so everyone has now moved to Hershel's farm and they're all camping out in the unprotected yard, because Hershel doesn't like strangers that he's known for days and invited to stay with him... so he wants them to move on when Carl is better. Rick asks if they can stay, and maybe even move into the barn and Hershel quickly changes the subject (FORESHADOWING!!!!) and then changes his mind and let's them stay... for now. Which then leads to the dumbest cool moment yet on a show that seems to specialize in really dumb cool moments.

What's the other end tied to? A Buick?

How many wells are there on Hershel's farm?

There are five.

Five, you say?

Yes, five, they clearly say five.

That's a lot.

That's right, it is. There's one for the house and four for fuck-if-I-know.

Wow, which one is closest to the cluster of tents the characters have set up in a random corner of the lawn and could easily move to a different spot?

That would be the one with the soggy and bloated zombie at the bottom.

Oh yeah? I guess they better drag it out of there, then... but wait, how are they gonna do that?

"Guys? Guys? This might've been a REALLY stupid idea!"

They have this whole stupid discussion about how they need to get the thing out of there BEFORE it contaminates the water, as if the very idea that a dead, rotting and bloated piece of possibly highly contagious meat isn't enough to forever befoul a well in the first place. And the crazy part is they just said there were five wells and yet no one suggests just walking over to a different one. It's insane and illustrates exactly what is wrong with this show.

1. There are easily viable and readily apparent and completely safe alternatives available.

2. It's completely unnecessary and no rational person, even in this insane situation would choose this course of action.

3. It's fake drama. It's contrived. Like a jump scare in a slasher movie, you're only tense because of the rising music, not because there's any actual drama at play.

4. But hey, at least the effects are awesome.

"You know that hat is too small for you, right?"

So then, after being well-zombie bait, Glenn has to make a run into town for supplies with nubile farmer's daughter, Maggie (who decides to wear a really stupid looking comboy hat special for the trip). Now, according to the other characters, Glen was chosen to make the supply run because of his ability to get "in and out" of places...

"So that's what they look like..."

Ah, yeah... a little side-boob and some implied consensual sensual in the abandoned remnants of a post-apocalyptic Hardware store. How romantic! So, Glenn's frown is turned upside down and the sun sets on another go nowhere episode of the Walking Dead. We finish off with Lori sneaking out in the middle of the night, going out into a field, seemingly without any concern for zombies, instead of just using the goddamn bathroom... in order to take a pregnancy piss test, where--shock of shocks--we learn she's pregnant and that we, the viewers, now must endure the storyline where we pretend like it matters, and that we care, who the father is.

Boooooooo!

﻿

And speaking of story lines no one with a brain wanted to see re-visited, Merle (played by the excellent Michael Rooker) was glimpsed in the preview for the next episode.

Remember him? He was a real handy guy... See what I did there?

So, is it a flashback? Will next week's episode focus on the group's pet redneck, better brother of, and official initial stand-in for Merle, Daryl? Or is Merle and his ridiculously over-the-top, more than tedious and stupidly stereotypical brand of racism back to plague the group with nonsense we'd all rather not see?

Friday, November 11, 2011

And let me assure you, people, it is a doozy! Motivations are revealed! Sword swings are carefully choreographed! Felicia Day quips! Have you been waiting? Are you excited? Well, the wait is over, my friends, so hang on to your butts, because you may have a whole seat, but you'll only be using the edge!

Let's watch...

Wow! That fight was pretty intense, huh? That was like an episode of Star Trek the Next Generation or some shit, right? That was some Broadway shit right there, I'm telling you. West side... story! And who would have thought they ALL had a dark past? Not me, I'll tell you that much right now, that's for sure.

I'm sorry, I kid.

I kid because I love. Really.

Oh, Felicia Day, you mean so well...

So, on that note, here's a little bit of surprise awesome:

Hmmmmm... Interesting, right?

I like the design, the look, the trolls, the monsters and the fighting and the milky queen and all that. Thor looks pretty cool and Charlize Theron seems ready to chew some scenery... So, that's all good. On first glance, it appears as if this might be something kind of cool. Of course, it's also important to remember that it stars Kristen Stewart as well, so let's not get too hyped up. I mean, the Hair-tucker can suck the life out of a project faster than... well... I don't know... the small faced guy from Twilight, maybe, I guess. Whatever, point is, she's terrible.

Sunday, November 6, 2011

Sunday! Sunday! Sunday! There's a new episode of the Walking Dead on TV tonight, which means it's about that time again, time to post my review for last week's episode. I'm reviewing one episode at a time this year, grimly slogging through each one, each week. You can read the other reviews here, if you want.

THE WALKING DEAD, SEASON TWO, EPISODE THREE

"Save the Last One"﻿

So what's the verdict in a nutshell?

Another week, another episode with a marked improvement in quality.

This only adds fuel to the question I posed last week: Was Frank Darabont ultimately the problem? With two Frank-less episodes now in the bag, I gotta tell you, people, all signs point to yes.﻿ I'm not claiming these last two episodes have been genius, because they haven't, they fall far, far short of that mark, but regardless there is just no denying the very apparent fact that since Frank left, each episode has been better than the last. Better pacing. Better dialogue. Better storytelling all around.

I mean, there is still a ridiculous amount of scenes where the characters are merely waiting patiently for their turn to speak so they can step to center stage and deliver the biggest, most bombastic and ham-fisted soliloquy's in the history of man, but then... that's a definite hallmark of Robert Kirkman, maybe complaining that the characters on Walking Dead deliver too many uber-heartfelt speeches is akin to complaining that water is too wet. So there's that again, of course.

But hey, at least Lori didn't do anything too crappy this episode, right?

That's a plus, right?

So, this episode jumps ahead of last week's cliffhanger, effectively killing the tension and leaving viewers with one burning question: Why is Shane shaving? Also, what happened to Otis?

Is there anyone out there who can't guess?

Before we get into that, though, let's talk about the two major problems with this episode, otherwise known as the reason why, even though this was one of the show's better episodes, it still wasn't a very good episode of TV, or how this episode is more akin to a really good episode of V, instead of, say... a regularly awesome episode of Fringe.

To begin: The beginning.

What does the beginning tell us right off the bat?

Shane lives.

As it very obviously takes place in the present, that means he must have survived the hub-bub at the high school. Also, as he looks at himself in the mirror, one can't help but notice from his movements and facial expressions that he looks a little... hmmm... Shocked? Stunned? Conflicted? Horrified? So, what does that tell us? How about that maybe some mistakes were made and now someone is dead? But who? Well, remember the head shaving thing? Ask yourself, does he have lice? ...No. No, he does not. Wait a minute... head shaving is often seen as a form of penance, right? Couple that with the idea that someone could be dead and what do you get?

Shane lives. Otis doesn't.

You only have to be faster than the slowest guy...

See, this is why a flashback like this is a stupid, hacky narrative device. With just half a brain and a little bit of paying attention, you know what happens in the story. You may not know how exactly, but you still know. It's the same problem The Prequels had (one of them, at least...) and that is, because of the narrative set up, we knew exactly what happens to every character, except for Mace Windu, but since he was the only character we didn't know what happened to, we end up knowing by default (He died). It's hacky, because here's what the writers were playing off of: In the comic, Otis survives this part, while Shane is long dead. They know the audience is looking for Shane's death, so they were trying to "rip the rug out from under us" ala Ned Stark. However, by showing us the end, we can all rest comfortably knowing that Shane makes it. The question of how Otis dies isn't a burning one because he's new and no one cares.

More on Shane and Otis later.

Let's move on to problem number two, or as I like to call it: Everybody else.

You people bore me.

Dale is still standing on the roof of the RV, spouting off generic old-man-isms and looking through his binoculars, even though he didn't see the last herd of zombies until they were 30 feet away. Carol is still useless. Hey lady? Your stupid daughter (who never does anything) is missing, how about you quit sobbing and start leading the search yourself? Take action! And what the fuck is with the stupid missing daughter? She ran into some woods that are right next to a fucking highway, right next to it! This is America! She's in some woods right next to a highway and she's been lost for days! DAYS! Really? Christ, maybe she deserves to be dead... And Andrea is soooo mopey, so whiny, so stomp-around-hissy-fitty. Oh, are you sad? Are you still weighing whether or not you want to live or not? Oh, please, remind us of this some more. Oh, poor baby... Kill yourself! And Daryl? As fun as it is to see him kill zombies, he's done nothing, but fake snark.

Oh, my god! Glenn did something! Everybody! Everybody! Glenn did something! He went to Hershel's farm with T-Dog (...I know, I mean... what the fuck? T-Dog? Come on). Anyway, he and "T-Dog" drove to the farm to offer help during Carl's surgery. Then they sat down on the porch and hung out. And cried a little. I may have fallen asleep there for awhile. There was chatting.

Oh, look. Rick and Lori are having a prolonged heart-to-heart. "Should we try to save our child or is it better to let him die?" That was their argument. Guess what they picked? Yep, that's how tense and dramatic it was too. This was the soliloquy part... on and on and on. Oh so bland. Oh so boring.

Back to Shane.

So, all the fun stuff is back at the hospital, with the zombies and the guts and the bang-bang-bang. Shane and Otis have been all over the place trying to ditch the zombies at their heels, they've saved each other, they've beaten back dozens of walking dead, and at the end they're both hurt, hobbled, and worn the fuck out. So, they're limping across the parking lot, almost completely out of ammo, the zombies closing in... and Shane makes a choice.

He shoots Otis in the leg and leaves him behind.

"Ow! Owwwwie! Ow! Ow-ow-ow-ow! Ow!"

And this is why Shane is the best character, not because he's such a great guy, but because he is not sometimes. He's complex and conflicted and does awful things for good reasons. Carl is kind of his son, you see, and the kid needs the gear they have or he will die. Otis is the man who shot Carl, accident or no accident. To Shane, the choice between Carl and Otis, is no choice at all. He didn't do it because he's evil, he feels bad about it, he did it because he's a survivor and surviving can mean having to do some ugly things.

So why the head shaving? Well, personally, I think the writers are trying desperately to understand the appeal of Shane that they have accidentally created and they are turning (admittedly rightly so) to Walter White from Breaking Bad (played by the great Bryan Cranston). My proof of this theory is the fact that this would technically be the second Breaking Bad reference, after the appearance of Walter's infamous blue meth in Daryls' brother Meryl's (Yes, they did do that) stash in the previous episode. So basically, Walter has had to make some decisions, some bad decisions, some horrible decisions and all for what started out as a noble goal. Shane is the same, so I think the writers are going to try to mirror that character's path. Unfortunately, I'm expecting that they are probably only really capable of the surface details, so the head shaving is happening, because Walter shaved his head too.

Also, probably because it looks bad ass.

So, to sum up, some ups, more downs, but looking better. Good, but still not great. The big problem now? After tonight, the season is half over. Can the last four episodes right the ship and make it a season worth watching or--gasp!--dare we hope? One worth revisiting?

Friday, November 4, 2011

You have to respect people for doing stuff like this. You have to respect the effort. To have the desire, the drive, and the discipline to see it all through to the end? It's no small thing and it deserves some applause in its own right.

But... good lord.

I mean, wow. I've watched four of these now and some... ok, most... ok, pretty much all of it is just... wow. Right? The exposition around the table? First of all, what the hell was that Reaver lady even saying? I couldn't pick up half of it. Secondly, why would anyone care? Why should we? I am loathe to get all critique-y on something Felicia Day is responsible for, because she's awesome, but I feel so far removed from the stakes of this thing. I mean, what are we here for? The characters have their oft-stated motivations, but shit, man, it just seems so unimportant, so distant and insignificant. And the fights don't even come close to redeeming the snail's pace dialogue and plot. They're the worst part. They're painful. I'll be honest, at this point, I'm only sticking around because I've spent so much time on this thing already.

But oh well, right? Whatta ya' gonna do? It is what it is. You gotta love the guy with the big hammer though, right? Hilarious. Imagine living in a world where someone would bring something like that into your house, because it's theirs. They just walk around, lugging a giant cinder block with them... It's ridiculous.

Ridiculous.

The funny part is, I bet there are folks out there who are just digging the shit out of this series, too. I'm not going to bother, but I bet if I spent just a little time looking, I'd find them. Probably legions of them. And they probably love the shit out of it. I don't understand it and I am constantly shocked by just how low some of the genre community's acceptable quality standards are, but good for them, I guess, love what you love. Right? We all have our weaknesses, our own bad tastes despite clear evidence to the contrary, our bad choices despite apparent common sense.

Myself, for example.

It will soon be my birthday and on that date I will officially be older than dirt. And the plan for the big night goes like this: Little Ms. Super-cute Wife and I will first go to Manny's Steakhouse, because it's delicious. And then, we will be going to this...

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Hi-Ho, kids! I'm over at the Scribblerati and I'm blogging about a big personal announcement. It's big. It's new and boy, oh boy, is it exciting. Although, admittedly, it may be one some of you more eagle-eyed readers might have noticed already.

Published Work

Now you can get all the short stories published this year through the Onyx Neon Shorts Imprint, at a fraction of the cost, plus a lot of new content too. This collection not only includes my short story Harris, but a new one as well. It's called Billy Torch takes a Beating.